Slashing The Backlog -- In Recons -- In Nevada

From the Reno Gazette-Journal:

Lisa Worobey likes to work.

Even as a brain condition from childhood continued to wreak a serious physical toll on her body, the 39-year-old Reno resident still managed to work regularly through the years. “I didn’t want to be on disability,” Worobey said. “I wanted to work just like everyone else.”

Everything changed, however, after Worobey fell in her last job and injured her femur. Already having several surgeries on her brain and spine, the latest resulted in several complications, including a staph infection. The pain eventually became so unbearable that Worobey decided to apply for disability. After being denied twice, Worobey was finally approved last December — a year and a half after she first applied. ...

“I just don’t understand why it takes so long,” Worobey said. “I sold my house, so I got a bit of money; but I quickly went through that. ...

The Bureau of Disability Adjudication in Carson City has undergone some key changes since a Reno Gazette-Journal article chronicled the agency’s problems in 2006.

Nationally, the Social Security Administration launched a couple of initiatives to help states speed up the disability application process, said Lowell Kepke, Social Security spokesperson for the San Francisco office.

One is hiring more administrative law judges nationwide to hear appeals. Another is a program called Quick Disability Determination, which was officially implemented in Nevada last October. Quick Disability uses software that screens applications based on key health criteria to speed up identification of severe disability cases.

The biggest change was the lifting of a freeze on reviews in the Carson City bureau of cases under appeal. The freeze was initially ordered as a way to ease workload pressure on overstretched staff and allow them to focus on reviewing new applications, said Kraig Schutte, chief of the Bureau of Disability Adjudication. . But the move led to a backlog of nearly 5,000 cases in the appeal stage — 2,800 of which involved “reconsiderations” or the first level of appeal and 2,149 for cases under continued review.

“We found that we were essentially 13 months behind in processing cases (on appeal), during the backlog,” Schutte said. “It had a major impact.”

The freeze was eliminated in September 2006, plus the bureau got assistance from the Social Security Administration to clear the backlog of appeals, Schutte said. As of last week, the bureau has trimmed its backlog for reconsiderations to 146 cases. The backlog for cases under continued disability review saw a similar significant drop to 152. Social Security also lifted a hiring freeze that was causing vacant positions to accumulate at the bureau. This bumped up staffing from 37 to 45, Schutte said.